


lights will guide you home

by whittler_of_words



Category: Hyper Light Drifter
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Drabble, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 11:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13716303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: You were never the main character of any story but your own.





	lights will guide you home

you are dying. there is blood in your mouth and spilled over the tile like the headiest wine and you are dying, finally; the only reason you are not dead already is because of the door between you and every enemy beyond it who would wield their teeth and claws against you. you’ve locked the door with the highest encryption setting your sprite was programmed with. you might as well be a prisoner.

is this as far as you get?

the two med injectors in your pack would be useless now. the few gearbits you’d scrounged on the way here are nothing more than trinkets. water dripping somewhere is the only sound accompanying your haggard breath, and you choke on it: once. twice.

“i was promised-” you say. try to. it comes out as nothing more than a wheeze, collapsed against the wall as you are. you know you need not words to be understood by that which is listening. “-salvation,” you finish. “a second path. give me another, please- i can’t die here.”

**you will** , says the Jackal, with not-words. pressing your palm against the gaping hole in your side, you imagine you can see her. **i promised you a path. you took it. you are owed nothing else.**

this was the only place any path could have ever taken you, in the end. all drifters know this; there is no currency worth more to your kin than blood. you thought, at least, you would get farther.

“i’ve failed,” you weep. your face is dry. this sorrow runs deeper.

**you have not. you have served me well.** she tilts her face up in the back of your vision, eyes in the void on a backdrop of even more nothing. **will serve those who come after you even better.**

that’s it, then.

it’s bitter. you’d felt chosen. but now it’s clear your life was never meant to be more than a stepping-stone in someone else’s story, a margin-scribble of a footnote of some other poor bastard’s life. should you be angry? should you be afraid?

or nothing at all.

+

...there’s a very soft sound as a door opens, accompanied only by the sound of water dripping somewhere.

the drifter’s boots as they walk slowly into the room are commas on the tile, a soft sort of punctuation that suits them almost as much as the cloak that falls from their shoulders. they cast a glance around. nothing of too much interest to be found: simply a couple lifetimes of water damage, and a dead body.

but the body contains multitudes. another drifter’s corpse as it is, the cloak is almost completely salvageable, and the sprite holds the next encryption key that drifter had been searching for. they tuck the former away, leaving the latter to be taken care of by their still functional bot, and are even more pleased to find a sorely needed medkit.

drifter could almost sigh in relief at the feeling of their scrapes knitting closed. there is a persistent ache -- one that never leaves them, sunken into the flesh of their lungs like shards of glass, whispering things when it thinks they might listen -- but they roll their shoulders, and stand again.

this is a safe place. they could take respite here. but drifter has too many miles still to go; they must not sleep.

they leave; persist. and the door slides shut.


End file.
